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The course 'Cultural encoding of global media usage: The Russian Internet in culture, society and politics' is an online cooperation between the Institute for East-European Studies (Free University Berlin) and the Russian State University of the Humanities (Moscow).

Dr. Natalja Konradova (Moscow)
Dr. Ekaterina Kratasjuk (Moscow)
Dr. Henrike Schmidt (Berlin)

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Course Description
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Homepages, forums, weblogs, artistic projects - due to its interactivity the Internet offers vast possibilities for the performance of cultural identity. But is it appropriate to assume the existence of a specific Russian Internet? And what would its specifics be? How is it embedded into today's Russian society and a globalized world?

Logotype of the Official State Funding Programme Electronic Russia

The course attempts to explore some of these multifaceted issues. It aims at discussing aspects of the cultural and historically determined encoding of global media usage, on the basis of such diverse topics as the emergence of (counter)public spheres, artistic practices of the resistance, literary production and digital folklore, Internet aesthetics and community building.

The course combines in-class meetings with online-sessions. German and Russian students communicate and cooperate via the Internet with international researchers in the fields of cultural and media studies. Working languages are English and Russian.

We are looking forward to our joint work!

Yours Henrike Schmidt & Natalja Konradova & Ekaterina Kratasjuk

P.S. To our visitors and guests: most of the seminar participants are non-native speakers. English is our working language. So please do not feel disturbed by our mistakes :).

24.07.2006
Our seminar has come to an end! We would like to say a big thank you to all active participants of the seminar - students, lectureres, authors, guests. Especially valuable, to our minds, has been the participation of the authors of the discussed articles.

Our online experiment has not always been an easy experience with regard to technical, social and communicative difficulties. Anyway, we hope you enjoyed the experience and got some interesting insights into Russian Internet culture and web theory!

Group works dedicated to Russian web resources in Germany and to flashmobs in Russia are starting in the next weeks. Results of the group works will be presented on the seminar homepage somewhat in autumn 2006. Stay tuned :) !

18.07.2006
Tomorrow, 19.07., the last offline session of the Berlin group takes place at Ihnestr. 22, 14.00-16.00. We'll try to summarize and systematize the results of our discussions :).

11.07.2006
The next offline meeting of the Berlin group, dedicated to technical questions of webdesign, takes place on Thursday, 13.07, 15.00-16.30, at Habelschwerdter Allee (Rostlaube), room "Orkan" (JK27/114).

11.07.2006
Tomorrow starts the last Discussion forum of our seminar! We are going to read the article devoted to the aesthetics of the (Russian) Internet by Andrej Gornykh and Almira Ousmanova from Minsk.

11.07.2006
We would like to say a big "Thank you" to Olga Goriunova, author of the article dedicated to networked artistic practices on the Russian web, who inspired with her comments an especially lively discussion.



Olga Goriunova

05.07.2006
Please note that we have extended the discussion of the article by Olga Goriunova for one more week.

28.06.2006
Today starts the Discussion of the article by Olga Goriunova dedicated to (sub)cultural artistic practices on the Russian Internet.

27.06.2006
Examples of how your online presentation could look like are published in the Presentations section.

27.06.2006
The Berlin group meets for an in-class session on Wednesday, 28.06., at 14.15, Ihnestr. 22.

21.06.2006
Please note that we have extended the Forum Discussion dedicated to the article on the Virtual persona by Eugene Gorny for one more week.

21.06.2006
Today the Berlin group meets for an in-class session at 14.15, Ihnestr. 22.

14.06.2006
Virtual identities, literary mystifications, robots and the first pensioner on the World Wide Web are the "heroes" of this week's reading by Eugene Gorny and our discussion which starts today in the forum.

12.06.2006
Please note that the Group work forum has been opened.

07.06.2006
We continue the discussion dedicated to diasporic communities on the Internet on the basis of this week's reading, the case study of the literary website Zagranica by Natalja Konradova.

31.05.2006
Please welcome Nils Zurawski, who kindly agreed to participate in our discussion on the Russian Diaspora on the Net which starts today in the Discussion Forum.



Nils Zurawski

24.05.2006
We are happy to announce our next guest, Eugene Gorny, the author of this weeks reading on the Russian blogging community. The Discussion starts today in the forum. Eugene is currently travelling in Karelia, where Internet access is not always given, but will occasionally join our session.



Eugene Gorny

17.05.2006
Please welcome our second guest, Katy Teubener, who kindly agreed to participate in our discussion on (Counter) Public spheres on the RuNet which starts in the Discussion Forum today.


Katy Teubener

10.05.2006
Today starts our next Discussion forum dedicated to the article by Ekaterina Kratasjuk "Construction of ‘Reality’ in Russian Mass Media. News on Television and on the Internet".


10.05.2006

Two weeks of online Discussion experience! We have opened a Feedback forum and are looking forward to your comments and proposals.

08.05.2006
Please note that all required readings are now available online. Just click on the Info buttons on the schedule.

08.05.2006
New participants biographies are online in the Students section.

03.05.2006
Please welcome Anna Bowles, who kindly agreed to participate in our discussion on the Changing Face of the RuNet which starts today in the Discussion Forum.


Anna Bowles

03.05.2006
The second offline-meeting of Berlin participants will take place on Wednesday, May 3d, 14.00-16.00, Ihnestr. 22, 22/UG 1.

02.05.2006

Participants biographies are online in the Students section.

26.04.2006
Today starts the first Session Discussion. As a warm up we will discuss our personal user experiences.

19.04.2006

Please feel free to make yourself acquainted already with the course environment. You are welcome to post your biographies and personal information. Please use the opportunity to get to know your Russian and German colleagues in the Discussion forum!

19.04.2006
The first offline-meeting of the participants located in Berlin will take place on Wednesday, April 19th, 14.00-16.00, Ihnestr. 22, 22/UG 1.

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Design, programming and course didactics by Katy Teubener.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.